Keith Jackson has acknowledged for the first time that some Internet Bampots think that he is flying a kite over the alleged Ibrox Takeover.
The award winning Daily Record reporter disclosed the WORLD EXCLUSIVE news on February 19 that with negotiations starting in October talks were now at an advanced stage towards transformational change with the inevitable summer transfer splurge.
The Record didn’t hold back, the following days the San Francisco 49GERS were on the front page but over the next two days Jackson subtly switched the deal from the 49GERS to Andrew Cavenagh via a brief stop off at Leeds.
It was a case of Deja Vu for almost all Internet Bampots as Jackson returned to the Craig Whyte profile that his career will forever be associated with.
There was no off the radar wealth or billionaire from Motherwell involved in this years moonbeam but it had all the traits of someone feeding him good news to relay on to the Record’s Army of Readers.
Not a single item of substance has been published on the deal over the last seven weeks, there has been no comment from anyone other than Dave King about selling shares but he’s been trying that for five years since walking away as Chairman and demanding full repayment, plus interest of a loan given to his beloved club.
Douglas Park had to dig in even deeper to resolve that issue, with King’s fingerprints all over the current takeover no-one from the Record has dared to get the thoughts of former Chairman Park on the exciting news. As the second biggest shareholder with 11.54% of the club his thoughts are fairly important.
Sky Sports got in on the spin on March 1 with a claim that agreement had been reached in principle to buy 51% of the shares with due diligence underway, again no detail was offered over who was selling worthless shares and what price they are paying for shares.
Jackson has remained loyal to ‘what I’m told’ but it is clear that the doubts raised by Internet Bampots are getting through to him.
On Monday’s Daily Record Hotline podcast he was all over the place but did admit to rumours that the takeover had collapsed, claimed that he expects the deal to be completed this month but that the ‘American consortium’ only currently have agreement to buy 25% of the shares.
41 minutes
BURNS: What are you hearing on it?
JACKSON: It is basically down a legal rabbit hole where it will remain until such time as the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed. I know that there is people who will want to put rumours about the thing collapsing or it is not going through, that flies in the face of everything that I’m being told.
As far as I’m being told all parties remain keen to get it concluded and I told to to expect that it could or should happen before the end of April.
So I’m guessing Scott that it should be crystalised one way or the other in the next couple of weeks.
But, there’s no snag, I’ll tell you what, I probably fully expect the 49ers and Andrew Cavenagh, maybe not Andrew Cavenagh, I would expect the American consortium will be represented again on Thursday night at Ibrox.
Because Andrew Cavenagh was in Istanbul for the Round of 16 first leg against Fenerbahce then flew to Glasgow, there was a four man delegation in a city centre hotel ahead of that one.
They stayed, they went to the training ground, they went to Celtic Park on the Sunday so they’ve shown a significant interest in it, I’d imagine, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t representatives, put it that way at Ibrox on Thursday night.
But, I’m told, its just a matter of the legal formalities. Are you hearing something different?
BURNS: No. What I’m hearing is that obviously the deal is quite close to the finishing line, but for me, what I was told is that there may be some Rangers directors that are getting a bit frustrated at the time it is now taking to complete this deal.
JACKSON: No, I’m sure that there are. Look, what have you got? You’ve got Dave King, you’ve got John Bennett and you’ve got Barry Scott who are looking to sell outright, their whole shareholding is going to go.
And I think that would take Andrew Cavenagh and the American consortium up to about 25%.
Then you have got separate, and this is why it has been really complicated, it has been a complicated deal from the start because it is not as simple as X going to Y, I’ll take your shares, as they managed to do at Leeds. It was more straightforward, there were so many strands, so many conversations that have to be had in so many time-zones.
With regard to, if you’ve got yourself to 25% which they do, if I’m one of these guys- Dave King, John Bennett, Barry Scott- I’m kind of thinking ‘I agreed this weeks ago, I want the cash to drop into my bank account’.
But I think it becomes further complicated that in order to get to the target of 51% they then have to enter into separate ‘you know, how many am I getting off you, whose giving me that, whose giving me X. Y Z’.
So I think that has complicated it but I don’t think that there is any barriers to it although I’m fully aware that the longer this goes on the more people will start to think ‘is something amiss?’
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On Friday the Ibrox club launched their Season Ticket Renewal campaign, neatly piggy backing onto the Fakeover story with bears having until May 5 to secure their seat for next season’s ‘Revolution’.
